Are You Physical Or Logical?

Maybe you’ve never thought of data migration as a soul-searching exercise, but we’ve found that it pays to know who you are before you worry about where your data is going. Specifically, are you the physical type or the logical type? Of course, we’re talking about whether you prefer a physical or logical approach to data migration. Fortunately, our Data Migration Server supports both physical and logical insertion methods.

So are you more physical or logical? Take our quiz below to find out…

1) I’m the touchy-feely type.
❏ True
❏ False

If you selected “true” than you should consider DMS’ physical insertion method. That means connecting the DMS directly to the Fibre Channel cables and waiting a few seconds before the DMS appliance intercepts the data paths. It takes only a few minutes of training to learn how to identify the FC ports and their roles, then you’re ready to go.

2) If I touch the production FC cables, the network administrators will:
❏ Look the other way
❏ Come after me with a cat o’ nine tails made out of CAT6 cable

Let’s face it: some companies don’t look kindly on messing with the production cables. That’s why Cirrus offers the virtual insertion method for data migrations. You simply connect the DMS appliance to the SAN fabric and a virtual fabric (VSAN) is automatically created to intercept the data paths.

3) Spending an afternoon in my client’s NOC is like:
❏ Riding in the front car of a roller coaster
❏ Watching paint dry in a network operations center

If on-site isn’t synonymous with “outta site” then you may prefer the logical insertion method. It requires only two on-site appearances: once when you rack and stack the DMS8000 appliances, and again when you pack them up. Otherwise, everything else can be done remotely (even from a roller coaster, if that’s your thing).

4) I like to spend my extra time:
❏ Having fun with my family and friends
❏ Reading a walnut-crushing instruction manual about Fibre Channel switches

You don’t have to be a switch expert to use the DMS in either physical or logical mode. In fact, you don’t even need to be able to pick out an FC switch from a police lineup. It’s literally as simple as cut, paste, and press the big button marked “Execute Commands.” (Note: the DMS appliance will not help you find friends if you don’t have any.)

5) The idea of creating thousands of new LUNs (logical unit numbers) is:
❏ Fun, because “fun” rhymes with “LUN”
❏ Terrifying, because I had to do this during my last data migration

Here again, you won’t need to make new LUNs no matter which insertion method you use with DMS, since both the logical and physical methods automatically create new LUNs for you.

Hopefully, you’ve learned a little more about yourself with this quiz and about data migration with Cirrus DMS. If you’d like to discover more, come back for our next blog on data migration cutovers or download our free whitepaper, “Storage Data Migration… Simplified.”

Or, for a view of our DMS in-action, check out our webinar replay for “Planning a Storage Data Migration.”